Namesake
by Catch23North
Summary: Twice before, Hera took the people Hercules loved most. This time, she's back for his friend Iolaus. What terrible power does Hera hold over him during these attacks, and can Hercules figure out a defense in time?


-

Hercules awoke. It was still night, deep empty shadows shaped by a cool edge of suspiciously soft-looking moonlight. There was no sound, and the air was dead around him. Hercules stood up warily, still numb from sleep. It was hard to focus, and the sleeping shape of Iolaus next to the burned-out campfire seemed improbably far away. A breeze ruffled through the clearing, chasing a handful of dried olive leaves up and away through the branches overhead.

"Who's there?" Hercules called, carefully.

There was no answer but a rise in the speed of the wind. It occurred to Hercules that he couldn't hear or feel this breeze, only see it.

Gaia, perhaps? Or Zephyrus?

Then he heard the cold laughter that was more of an intrusive thought than actual sound. Hercules froze. He knew that laugh. It was one of the few sounds that could genuinely inspire fear in him, and it was only at times like these, while he actually hearing the sound, that he remembered why it was to be feared. It was like a dream that he never remembered upon waking, only worse. Worse, because when he awoke from this 'dream' he invariably looked down to see the body- -or bodies- -of those he loved.

Iolaus.

No, not this time, please not him...

The Queen of the Gods materialized fully in the air just below the level of the tree branches, manifesting herself as an undulating carpet of feathers and flower petals and shadows. On the edges of the strange mask, long ferns waved like sea eels. No features except her eyes were really recognizable, in human terms.

"What do you want from me, stepmother? Whatever it is, I'll-" -no, I can't break now- -I-

"-Hera, please. Please not this..."

Hercules squeezed his eyes shut against the terrible, powerful goddess appearing before him, but it had no effect and the woods, and those wrathful, mesmerizing peacock-feather eyes kept burning into his frightened brown ones. The edges of his vision started to darken.

"No! Please, I know you hate me, but Iolaus isn't just mine. That's what makes him so special, he's everybody's. He's something different to each person, but he loves people, and whether he's a friend, a lover, a brother-in-arms... -'Dite! Aphrodite like Iolaus. He's one of her favorite mortals! Hera, stop this, please..."

The only thing left in the world were those eyes. They filled Hercules' vision, and Hercules knew there were only seconds left before he would black out completely and become a berserker under Hera's control... He had to think, and think fast. The first time Hera had usurped his mind like this, he'd fought her in a psychic battle, and lost. Dionera had been the price, along with- -no, focus. Second time... The second time Hera had attacked him, he'd screamed at her, and cried, and pleaded with Hera, appealing to a sense of justice and mercy that apparently, she hadn't possessed. That had cost him Serena.

There was no pride in these silent, desperate negotiations. Hera could do as she liked with Hercules, and they both knew it. In the last moments before the curtain fell, Hercules tended to get very pragmatic. He wasn't usually able to set aside the misdeeds of other gods, but in these hidden encounters with Hera, the stakes were far too high to even think about justice for the dead. He couldn't fight her, and he couldn't appeal to her emotions, (except of course, as an outlet for her rage). What did that leave?

"How can I appease you, Hera?" Hercules asked, swiftly.

-

All at once, Hercules stumbled back to awareness in the clearing with the insubstantial wind lashing the branches overhead, and Hera seething like the waves of an angry sea in front of him. Hercules felt a sudden gratitude to Athena, goddess of wisdom and reason. He'd never gotten this FAR before. ...That is to say, he was still thinking for himself.

/APPEASE me?/ Hera mocked him, /-you seriously think that there is anything that COULD?/

"Tell me. Please," Hercules stood his ground, almost daring to hope.

/You were born to spite me, you pathetic half-breed," Hera replied, softly.

"Why do you hate me more than-" -maybe mentioning Zeus's other illegitimate children would not be the way to get in Hera's good graces... "-anyone else?" Hercules asked.

/Your name./

"My n... -WHAT?!"

/You, above all others, were born to spite me... Hercules./ Hera pronounced the last word as if it was poisonous.

Hercules had never thought about it strategically before, but he HAD been named after Hera. He had always assumed it was an effort to -placate- the enraged queen of the gods, not further irritate her, but being Hera, Hera had of course interpreted the name in the worst possible way.

"Could you give me another name, then? One that you'd like better?"

Hera laughed, cruelly.

/No. I like -our- name just the way it is./

Something in the way Hera said that made Hercules wonder if his name was part of the reason why Hera could get into his head and use him for a homicidal sock-puppet.

"I'm tired of being your enemy. I'm tired of burying my friends. I..."

Hera waited, a triumphant smirk on her lips as she watched Hercules try to plead without actually groveling.

"I-" Hercules paused, and then looked her in the eyes deliberately, against his better judgment, "-I don't think you've ever seriously considered me. -As a son, I mean."

Hera felt as if she was watching a dog chew off it's own privates for no reason. Puzzled, scornful, and a little repelled.

/Get to the point./

"You're the goddess of marriage, among other things. Look at how many of the marriages you've blessed over the last few years would not have happened if I hadn't kept the husband from dying in a war, or the-"

/You are REALLY beginning to bore me/ Hera decided, eyes narrowing.

"Most of the things you stand for, as a goddess, I actually agree with. It's your making me KILL people that I have a problem with," Explained Hercules.

/How touching. What do you propose to DO about it?/ Hera asked, condescendingly. Hercules was starting to amuse her again, if only slightly.

"Well, Aphrodite has Cupid helping her and they have more or less the same job, but SHE says how it gets done. ...What if you had me?" Hercules finished, uncomfortably.

Hera laughed, for a very long time. Then she read deeper into his thoughts, and realized that the foolish demigod was actually serious.

/You want to get me to like you by becoming the god of marriage?/

"Uh, yeah. That's more or less what I meant. You wouldn't have to actually like me, as long as you stopped killing people right and left. Your doing that is why I do what I do now, but if you stopped..."

/You would be out of a job/ Hera finished for him. /You have Zeus's balls, that's for sure./

Hercules wasn't positive what she meant by that, so he stayed silent.

/...But you were faithful to your wife.../ Hera considered.

Was this going to work?, Hercules wondered, nervously. Good gods, this could really work! ...Which meant that he would be working for Hera now... ...Okay, so that could go either way...

/Hercules, being the 'god' of what I do.../ Hera broke off and snickered for a moment.

"Why couldn't I be? I -liked- being married. Cupid and 'Dite can get people together, and I can uh, tell them how marriage is supposed to work. -The right way."

Hera was silent, considering. Then the wind in the treetops, which had fallen to almost nothing rose in a sudden angry gust, and her eyes hardened.

/No. Go back to the mortal world you love so much, and live to pay for your insolence, Hercules!/ Hera locked eyes with Hercules angrily, and bashed her way past his mental defenses as if they were the spider-webs of Arachne.

Who she also hated with a fiery passion.

The last thing Hercules thought before the darkness crashed down, was that his children were going to be happy to see Iolaus again.

-

The children would have to wait however, because when Hercules opened his eyes in a panic, conscious at last, Iolaus was still lying unharmed by his side, snoring softly. Hercules shook Iolaus awake by his shoulders, urgently.

"Herc, what in t-?" Iolaus mumbled, blearily, raising one hand to rub his eyes.

"Thank ANY gods who are listening." Hercules sighed, gathering his beloved friend in a relieved hug.

"Uh... Did I just miss something?" Iolaus asked, still being hugged.

"Yes, you did. And I can't tell you how happy I am that you did."

"D' I die again?"

Hercules shook his head.

"I thought- -but then she didn't."

"No, tell me what REALLY happened..." Iolaus chuckled.

"I had a nightmare about Hera, and I think she was really there." Hercules explained, loosening his grasp on Iolaus so that they could continue the conversation face-to-face. "She was trying to get inside my mind... I remember the beginning of the conversation, but not how it ended. I thought for sure when I woke up you were going to be-"

"But you did, and I'm not," Iolaus interrupted, hastily.

"That's right," agreed Hercules, with just a hint of triumph in his voice. Had he beaten Hera or something? Hercules didn't think he had, but Iolaus was alive, and aside from the god-sense that told him one of the members of the long-lived half of his family had just departed, it could have all been a bad dream. "Someone WAS here... Maybe one of the other gods is trying to mess with my head."

Iolaus looked past Hercules's shoulder, and caught sight of a single exquisite peacock feather stuck tip-first into the ashes of last night's campfire like a standard. Iolaus froze, emotions cycling quickly through rage and fear to healthy caution.

"I wouldn't count on it, Herc."

Hercules followed Iolaus's pointing finger to the distinctive blue-green feather, and looked at it hard for a long moment. He started to wonder what evil plot Hera had in mind this time, and then stopped himself.

Iolaus was alive.

That was something.

-

-end-


End file.
